Motown’s Black women songwriters and producers were the invisible architects behind the pop music juggernaut

By Margena A. Christian

DURING the 1960s, in a country divided by racial strife, the music of Berry Gordy, Jr.’s Motown Records helped bring people together.

Motown was noted for star performers like Mary Wells, The Miracles, The Supremes, The Temptations, , Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder. But, behind the scenes, a talented group of lesser known women were driving the hits in Hitsville U.S.A.

I’m a and author of the biography It’s No Wonder: The Life and Times of Motown’s Legendary Songwriter Sylvia Moy. Researching my book inspired me to find other women who contributed to the Detroit label’s era of chart dominance and helped change the music industry, despite going largely unrecognized for their efforts.

I listened to Motown growing up, but it wasn’t until 2021, while sitting at home during the pandemic, that I discovered Moy’s history as the lyricist for Stevie Wonder and how she helped .

Because Moy died in 2017, I wasn’t able to speak with her for the book. Instead I researched her life by reading countless interviews she gave, along with talking to her former colleagues at Motown, family, and ethnomusicologists, who are scholars that study music through the lens of culture.

ARCHITECT OF THE EARLY SOUND
When Gordy was organizing his company, was one of the original five founding members who arrived in 1958. She was the label’s first secretary and its first female songwriter after co-writing, with Gordy, the song “.” That song was released on in 1959 and performed by Barrett Strong. When Motown was incorporated the following year, the song became the label’s first hit record on the R&B chart and Billboard Hot 100.

Later, Bradford co-wrote “” for Wonder and “,” first recorded by The Temptations and later, Marvin Gaye. Bradford, who later became Motown’s director of writer’s relations, teamed up with pianist Richard “Popcorn” Wylie in the early 1960s to form Janard, a small production company.

Bradford’s collection of poetry is what captured Gordy’s attention, so he encouraged her to be a songwriter. Her witty lyrics told stories about situations that most anyone could relate to — namely, money and love — blended with up-tempo, thumping beats.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION AS A PRODUCER
Another key figure who paved the way with the Motown sound was Raynoma Gordy Singleton, who was . She organized Motown during its beginnings by completing the necessary paperwork to incorporate the business. Known as “Miss Ray” to some and “Mother Motown” to others, she located the legendary house at 2648 West Grand Boulevard that became the Motown headquarters and, decades later, the .

In her role as the label’s first executive vice-president, she established a tape library. A piano virtuoso and singer, the Cass Technical High School graduate wrote that she was able to . As a result, she became the company’s first female arranger and producer by putting together its first backup vocal group, the Rayber Voices, in 1958.

“Producing records was where the action was controlled — and where the money was to be made,” she wrote in her memoir, The Untold Story: Berry, Me, and Motown, which aimed to reclaim her place in the Motown echelon.

During the 1960s, women weren’t considered producers because of broader biases and norms in the male-dominated music industry. Even so, Miss Ray got credit for producing Jimmy Ruffin’s song “” in 1961.

Earning a producer’s credit was a sign of legitimacy. Most producers received a songwriting credit and determined who received credit in the liner notes for their contribution to the recording.

While women mostly worked in administrative roles at Motown, there still weren’t any female full-time, in-house songwriters and producers. Like the rest of the music industry back then, was patriarchal with those positions.

THE FIRST CERTIFIED FEMALE SONGWRITER AND PRODUCER
Yet this imbalanced gender dynamic at Motown didn’t stop Sylvia Moy.

There hadn’t been any women producers behind significant, popular songs at Motown until Moy arrived, according to interviews I conducted for her biography.

Motown was at its peak in 1964. Demand for new songs was intense. When the label’s executives realized how skillfully the two audition songs Moy performed were composed, they decided that her future was in songwriting instead of singing.

Discovered by William “Mickey” Stevenson and Marvin Gaye, Moy was hired as the first female in-house songwriter, competing with eminent colleagues like Smokey Robinson, Norman Whitfield, and the songwriting trio Holland-Dozier-Holland who wrote chart-topping singles. Moy made more history in 1965 after Stevie Wonder’s “.”

While she received the songwriting credit and helped revive the teenaged Wonder’s career, Moy wasn’t given the producer’s credit, unlike her two male counterparts, Stevenson and Henry “Hank” Cosby.

A lack of recognition stymied Moy’s career opportunities. If a songwriter or producer wasn’t credited, their value could not be validated or established, which made it harder for them to find work at other record labels.

According to my research, Moy revealed that she never got producer credit for any of her work while at Motown. This is why her legacy was .

Other tunes she wrote for Wonder were “I Was Made to Love Her,” “My Cherie Amour,” and “With A Child’s Heart,” co-written with Vicki Basemore. Moy also wrote Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston’s “It Takes Two” and The Isley Brothers’ “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak For You).” Though songwriter Eddie Holland told me he gave her a co-writing credit for “This Old Heart of Mine,” Moy’s name was not listed on the record, only Holland-Dozier-Holland.

Interviews I conducted with Moy’s family members and research from an ethnomusicologist suggest she was even an uncredited co-writer for Wonder’s “,” his first song as a solo producer, and The Temptations’ “.”

However, Holland denied this claim in an interview with me, though he also admitted that the song’s late co-writer and producer, Norman Whitfield, presented him with the lyrics, and he wasn’t sure where they came from.

FULL CREDIT ALONG WITH CREATIVE CONTROL
In 1968, Valerie Simpson became Motown’s first female songwriter to also receive a producer credit. This possibly happened because her songwriting partner was her husband, Nickolas Ashford.

Other famous female songwriters like , , and also had a prominent husband in the music industry. Sylvia Moy did not, which made what she did unprecedented.

in 2023 that the credit was difficult to attain because so few women were producers back then. It finally happened with the Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye song “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing,” with Simpson getting credit for co-writing, co-producing, and performing background vocals along with Ashford.

This was their third hit tune by Terrell and Gaye, who also recorded “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Your Precious Love,” in 1967. The following year, they had another hit with “You’re All I Need to Get By,” which Ashford and Simpson also co-wrote, co-produced and did background vocals on.

Simpson became the first Black woman to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame . Moy became the second .

Though female songwriters and producers continue the in the recording studio, the doors were opened by the tenacious women of Motown. It is because of them that future generations of female creatives know what is possible. — The Conversation via Reuters Connect

is an emeritus professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.